No, lack of evidence isn’t very good reason to believe he didn’t do it. It’s good reason to have doubt. If there’s reasonable doubt, we don’t convict. That doesn’t mean the accused is innocent. And it certainly doesn’t mean the accusation was false. Which, after all, is the premise of the thread. As a lawyer, you should be fighting ignorance, not reinforcing it.
As Jimmy Chitwood says there isn’t a lot set in stone here - the Refugee Convention says nothing about revoking status, although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees accepts that it can be done where there weren’t actually grounds for it in the first place. I don’t know of the US case law in this area and if there are any precedents. To be compliant with the principles of international refugee law, though, the revocation would have to based on more than a lie about an element of the claim - it would really have to go to the heart of it.
So if her entire claim was based on this alleged rape, which never happened (and which she had no real well-founded fear of happening in the future), and her claim could not be sustained on any other grounds, then her status *probably *could be revoked on that basis. If, on the other hand, the alleged rape was only one of a number of reasons that she had been deemed to meet the Convention definition of a refugee, those other reasons cannot be discounted merely because the rape story was false or exaggerated.
Then why shouldn’t we believe you did it? After all, there’s a definite lack of evidence you did it… and you say that’s not a good reason to believe you didn’t do it, so…
Well, he wasn’t accused, for one thing.
It seems to me that even if half of all rape claims are false, that still means 50% of accused rapists are guilty. If we pulled a person at random from the non-accused general population… (and I am totally pulling this number out of my ass) say that only 1 out of 100 people in the non-accused population are rapists. That means the probability that PBear42 is a rapist is 1% (Sorry, PBear.)
Seems to me that while we can’t say whether or not DSK is a rapist, we can say that he has a higher probability of being one on the mere basis of the accusation. That’s not the same as condemning someone, it’s just common sense. And given those odds, I don’t think it’s a reasonable basis for convicting the woman of filing a false report. Because that’s really what this thread is about - punishing a woman for lying when the only evidence we have that she lied is insufficient evidence to convict the accused.
We’re not asking for a conviction, all we are asking is that she be paraded in handcuffs in front of the world’s press, thrown in jail for a few weeks, and lose her job. She has, after all, been accused of a serious crime. One with a very poor conviction rate. And she is said to have a history of lying.
Why is she not being treated as harshly as DSK when he was accused (arguably less plausibly) of a serious crime?
Hint: the correct answer is that neither of these people should be treated like DSK was, unless some hard evidence of a crime emerges. US ‘justice’ has not covered itself in glory here.
Frankly the biggest problem isnt even that he was treated harshly but that in the end it was for absolutely nothing. They both got their reps in shreds, and nobody will ever know the truth (I doubt the civil case will bring any answer, at best, there will be a settlement).
For the record, I agree. I would strongly be in favor of a law requiring that all alleged victims and alleged perpetrators are to remain anonymous unless proven guilty in a court of law. I honestly don’t understand why we don’t already have this law.
From what I have heard, it sounds like the prosecution tied its own hands on this one, by urging the woman to go public and loudly trumpeting what an airtight case they had. By making the credibility of the case dependent on the credibility of the witness, they basically set themselves up to fail.
Really? Are you sure? And what are the implications of this?
DSK has accused whatsherface of lying. How does that affect the probability that she is a liar? Given that many people tall lies, can we assume that she is very likely to be a liar?
Well, for one, we already know she has a history of lying, which raises her probability of lying pretty substantially. If 50% of all rape claims are false, that means 50% of all accusers are lying. So yes, it works both ways, and neither statistic is sufficient for a conviction. (For the record, I don’t believe 50% of all rape claims are false. I believe the rate is much, much lower. But I’m trying to meet people where they are at, here.) I am specifically responding to the notion that an alleged rape victim should be punished if she cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the rape occurred. I can’t think of any situation where that would be just.
It seems to me from the many comments on this thread that simply being arrested/charged with a crime leads them to believe that the arrestee is probably guilty.
So what is the redress for someone falsely accused? If I am falsely accused of rape, but the charges are dropped because (God, Allah, Jesus, Mother Nature) showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was lying or crazy. Go home, sorry for your trouble.
What do I do when I apply for my dream job and my employer searches my criminal history and sees:
8/24/2011 Arrested: AGG RAPE 1ST DEG Level: FELONY Disposition: NOLLE PROSEQUE
What would you think seeing that? I guess innocent until proven guilty doesn’t mean that anymore.
Pretty sure the disposition will say “dismissed”.
She hasn’t been arrested because the evidence that she made up the accusation isn’t remotely as strong as the evidence that DSK raped her.
Beyond that, I’m always amazed at how many men, and particularly how many white men are hysterically afraid of false accusations of rape.
I suspect many of the men who piss themselves in fear of women falsely accusing them of rape like to whine about minorities having a “victim complex” or using “racism” as an excuse.
Really? I don’t really see that. I see people saying the idea of punishing this woman simply because the prosecution dropped the case is bullshit. It’s just as bullshit as convicting an alleged rapist on the basis of her accusation. We don’t know what happened, it apparently can’t be proven one way or another, so punishing anyone in the court of public opinion or otherwise would be a pretty grave miscarriage of justice.
Oh, I absolutely agree there is insufficient evidence to convict her for a false report. I was just reacting to the sweeping statement.
Or, y’know, it happened to us already once and we’re somewhat gun-shy about it.
Would you say it ruined your life? Came close?
Eh, I’d say it ruined my life for a specific time and place, and I essentially had to rebuild my social group from scratch. Ten years gone, it’s not really a huge deal.
I’m sure there are also some men who’ve been raped by women, but it’s hardly something men should be afraid of.
Similarly, men who are terrified of being falsely accused of rape, particularly those who are white, are extremely paranoid.
I guess you think I would feel differently if I were the accused. In fact, no, I wouldn’t. I would understand that dismissal of the charges because prosecutors concluded they couldn’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt does not establish my innocence. Ditto as to acquittal after trial. That’s not a “sweeping statement.” It’s the law. OJ was acquitted, but this didn’t prove he was innocent.
BTW, in case you missed it, what prompted my post was AK84’s response to OM4th’s post about her rape experience. In the latter, she explains that she didn’t file a police report because she recognized she couldn’t prove the charge. AK84 responded, in substance, if there’s no evidence then the rape didn’t happen. Balderdash. It just means the rape couldn’t be proven. The same is true of the DSK incident. As OM4th has said several times, we don’t know what happened and probably never will. This doesn’t mean DSK’s accuser lied. Only that she might have. A concern which raises reasonable doubt There’s a huge difference between those two things. Do you really not see the difference?
Admittedly, this leaves the accused in a tough spot. Since non-prosecution or acquittal is not a finding of innocence, the court of public opinion may conclude what it will without necessarily being fair. Withholding judgment as to both the accused and the accuser is difficult for most people. The job of lawyers in a forum like this, though, IMHO, is to explain that middle way.
WTF has that got to do with the topic? First, how do you know posters’skin color, you’ve got an app for that? Plus, judging from the even-more-common-in-the-US “white girl falsely accuses black guy of rape” trope, your point is so off target, one wonders if you havent posted in the wrong thread.